(8)
Bush II and Congress have both created the conditions for potentially
large scale police-state actions on U.S. soil through suspension of
habeas corpus (Military
Commissions Act of 2006) and Posse Comitatus (John
Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2006—signed into law by Bush
II on the same day!). Bush II also signed National
Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive NSPD-51/HSPD-20
allowing the president to give himself the equivalent of dictatorial
powers in the event of a (presidentially declared) “catastrophic emergency.”
This Directive, obviously, will still be in force to hand potential
dictatorial power to Bush II’s successor, whoever it might be. Finally,
there is the Violent
Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act which passed
the House 404–6 without so much as a mention in the corporate media
last fall and is in committee in the Senate. While most Americans are
behaving like good little sheeple, the power elite is doubtless worried
about some of us. After all, the Ron
Paul Revolution took on such a life of its own last year that even
Time was compelled to cover it. The corporate media tried
as hard as it could to ignore Ron Paul, as I noted; when that became
impossible, they attacked ad hominem by portraying him and his followers
as nutjobs and ignoring their substantive views on such subjects as
the Federal Reserve and sound money. He was clearly a threat.

The
Ron Paul Revolution has not gone away, and it will be interesting to
see what happens when Dr. Paul’s latest book Revolution:
A Manifesto hits the streets next month. I’ve no doubt that if push
comes to shove, if efforts to build the Trans-Texas
Corridor (or NAFTA
Superhighway, if you prefer—again, we now have disinformation
on the subject) run up against refusals by armed Texans to relinquish
their land under post-Kelo
eminent domain, the police state will act. I doubt that we will
see martial
law declared in all 50 states at once. It may be limited to a “hot
spot” such as the path of the TTC and rationalized by media that will
denounce opponents of “progress” as hotheads and troublemakers—or as
“conspiracy kooks” and “gun nuts”—for defending land that has been in
their families for generations. Then the elite will watch and see what
happens. Will those in neighboring states protest if their countrymen
are rounded up and thrown in detention camps (see below)? Or will they
go on watching sports and American Idol and otherwise being sheeple?
Who knows? Maybe martial law in all 50 states won’t even be necessary.
(Perhaps I should note, however, that U.S. military personnel in Iraq
have
already been interrogated over their willingness to shoot American
civilians if necessary in a martial law situation.)

(10)
Evidence has emerged of people tortured not just overseas but in American
jails and prisons. The José
Padilla case is rife with suggestions that this man—admittedly no
saint but nevertheless a U.S. citizen supposedly with rights under the
Constitution—was kept in solitary confinement under conditions amounting
to sensory deprivation and sleep deprivation for extended periods of
time without having been formally charged with any crime or being allowed
to consult with his attorneys. In other words, he was tortured in prison;
his Constitutional rights were violated brazenly. Bush II had declared
him an “enemy combatant.” Others have alleged
torture around the world at the hands of U.S. forces under the Bush
II regime. Moreover, information has been circulating about facilities
in every state being prepared for conversion into detention
centers (otherwise known as concentration
camps) for political dissidents or for undesirables generally (think
of the growing armies of the unemployed and the foreclosed on as well
as those fed up with our power elite). There is enough total space in
these camps for well over a million Americans. Those responding to such
allegations as evidence of conspiratorial paranoia had better hope they
are right! What defenders of the status quo cannot deny—we have tons
of hard evidence on YouTube and making their way through the courts—of
police turned into bullies and thugs who use
Taser stun guns on the slightest provocation, including during routine
traffic stops. The targets of Taser attacks by police now include children
and people
in wheelchairs! It is probably anticlimactic to say that the U.S.
now incarcerates a higher per capita percentage of its citizens
than any other supposedly advanced nation in the world including mainland
China!

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(11)
Under Bush II’s No Child Left Alone (er, Behind) which obviously also
has many precursors from Mastery Learning through Goals 2000 and School-To-Work,
government schools have all but collapsed. Of course, as I and many
others (Charlotte Iserbyt,
John Taylor Gatto, Beverly
Eakman, etc., etc., etc.) have argued at length, these laboratories
of social engineering never aimed to produce informed, Constitutionally-literate,
vigilant citizens but sheeple who would trust their government, do as
they are told, support prevailing agendas on, e.g., homosexuality, and
then go back to sports and reality TV. In this sense, of course,
“public schools” have been dramatic successes! Increasing numbers of
alert parents have withdrawn their children from government schools.
Homeschooling is now the largest independent education movement in the
country. It is clear, though, that a backlash is building. An effort
to criminalize parents of 166,000 children currently being homeschooled
in California is just
getting underway.

Well,
let’s catch our breath! Those are the “accomplishments” of government
under Bush II’s watch, with help from other corporatist-globalists such
as Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Michael Chertoff, Tom Ridge, Condi
Rice, Nancy Pelosi, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Arnold Schwartzenegger,
Lindsay Graham, and countless others—all furthering the goals of Bush
II’s unacknowledged handlers, which are (1) wealth consolidation; (2)
control over the political system while continuing a façade of “democracy”;
(3) the total information awareness of a surveillance police state;
and (4) setting the stage for the elimination of dissent through a social
environment characterized by intimidation, fear, and when these fail,
the use of brute force including torture.

John
McCain’s philosophy of government differs from that of Bush II in just
one respect: it’s worse!

McCain
has promised “a
hundred years” in Iraq if necessary. He has told us “there
will be other wars.” You may read McCain’s philosophy of war here.
If last year is any indication, McCain can be counted on to continue
the open-borders / North American integrationist policies of Bush II
and the latter’s corporatist cronies throughout the hemisphere. McCain
is, of course, a member of the CFR
in good standing, as no doubt will be nearly all those appointed to
positions of responsibility in a McCain administration. Finally, McCain
has an authoritarian
personality and is noted for his volcanic
temper. He would be considerably less tolerant of disagreement with
official policy than Bush II—and possibly even more likely than Bush
II to hand down presidential directives giving himself power. He voted
against an anti-torture bill before Congress.

In
World Affairs Brief
(February 15), Joel Skousen speculates that the power elite might designate
Mike Huckabee as McCain’s running mate. This would corral the votes
of clueless
Evangelical Christians and keep the rest of the “true conservatives”
from either defecting to a third party or simply going fishing in November.
The corporate media was not building up Huckabee a few weeks back for
no reason at all (his handlers needed, moreover, to divert attention
from Ron Paul’s record-breaking
grassroots fundraising successes). Huckabee cooperated—guided of
course by his chief advisor CFR
President Richard Haass. He may cooperate further as a McCain running
mate by telling Evangelicals, “Whatever he did last year with ‘immigration
reform,’ John McCain is really one of us.” Hey, Bush II was able to
pull it off. A lot of Evangelicals are among those who voted for Bush
II thinking he is “conservative.” Some people just aren’t very bright
and can be fooled again and again.

A
McCain presidency? If the GOP nominates him, it doesn’t deserve to keep
the White House. If voters elect him president (or, alternatively, if
Diebold electronic voting machines “select” him and voters say nothing),
they do not really deserve freedom. Again, this is not an argument to
vote for the Democrat. The two dominant parties, as I said, have never
given us worse! We have never more desperately needed a credible third
party, which does not mean we will have a third party candidate capable
of overcoming the power elite’s control over the process or a corporate
media blackout. If Ron Paul couldn’t do it as a Republican while breaking
grassroots records for fundraising, what makes anyone believe a Libertarian
Party or Constitution Party or Ralph Nader could do it? I will go so
far as to predict, though, that if any of the present dominant choices
becomes president in 2009, this will be our last or possibly second-to-last
general election.

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A
“catastrophic emergency” will come, and whoever is in the White House
will declare himself or herself President-For-the-Duration-of-the-Emergency
(which will stretch out indefinitely). I’m not claiming my predictions
mean a whole lot, of course. No one’s breaking down my door these days
asking for my opinions. Still, I can’t get it out of my mind that we
might actually be slightly better off with Hillary Clinton or the celebrity-like
Barack Obama in the White House. Republicans might decide to get their
act together. I doubt it, but one can always hope. What is for sure:
the mainstream of today’s GOP won’t touch President McCain—even if his
policies are virtually identical to those of a Democrat. For part one
click below.

Dr. Steven Yates
has a Ph.D. in philosophy. He is the author of two books, Civil Wrongs:
What Went Wrong With Affirmative Action (1994) and Worldviews: Christian
Theism versus Modern Materialism (2005), roughly two dozen articles and
reviews in refereed professional journals, and hundreds of opinion columns
both online and in news periodicals (he writes a regular column for the
Greenville-SC based weekly The Times Examiner).

He was involved
in the struggles against CAFTA and the FTAA, participated in a successful
citizens’ effort to have legislation passed declining to implement the
Real ID Act of 2005 in South Carolina, and was active on behalf of the
Ron Paul campaign. He has spoken to local, state-level and national groups
including the Patriot Network, the Georgia Eagle Forum, Freedom 21, and
the John Birch Society. He lives in the Greenville, South Carolina area
where he commutes between two colleges teaching philosophy and is pondering
the fate of his latest almost-completed book The Real Matrix: Fabricated
Reality in the Emerging New World Order in light of the fact that for
all practical purposes the New World Order is here and he doesn’t want
to end up a political prisoner.

Whether
we like it or not, the power elite is getting what it wants again this
election year. Having recognized the philandering, cross-dressing Rudy
Giuliani as unappealing to most Republican voters and having been able
to black out Ron Paul for the most part, they have gotten behind John
McCain as their GOP standard-bearer.